TUN Day 11: 07/02/09 - Udomxai -> China

. Monday, March 30, 2009

Foggy and cold morning in Udomxai.
We boarded the bus bound for China in the afternoon at this Chinese restaurant. The bus starts from Luang Prabang actually. And here we are, a few kilometers from the Lao-China border, when we stopped for quite a while because the drivers were found to be exporting some mangosteens over to China. Not so sure about the details though.
It was a sleeper bus, meaning the seats are all beds. Mine was a cramped single bed, should have found a double bed earlier. This pic was taken by a Dutch lady who was going to Gansu with her husband, taking up some job over there. There were also this four Italian ladies who could speak excellent Mandarin, who got on the bus at the same place as us. Italian teachers in different parts on China on holiday in Laos.
Finally on China soil after the long wait at the customs coz there was a big group of Thai tourists in front of us. 
We stopped at Mengla for dinner and i spotted this man when we were scouting for a dinner place. A bit nervous when taking this photo, which explains the shaky photo.
After dinner, it was non-stop traveling and desperate attempts to sleep on the squeezy bed.

The Search for the Perfect Strawberry

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TUN Day 10: 06/02/09 - Muang Ngoi - Nong Khiaw - Udomxai

. Sunday, March 29, 2009

This was taken on the morning that we left Muang Ngoi. This pic shows the village behind the guesthouse and the mountain behind shrouded in the morning dew/fog. And if you look closely, you can see that there's barbed wire surrounding the village, presumably to block off potential intruders like us.
Riverweed. Slightly disappointed that i didn't have a chance to try it.
The inside of the guesthouse. Had to use flash coz it was completely dark inside.
We caught the first boat back to Nong Khiaw, like many other tourists, which explains why it was so cramped on the boat. I didn't realise there were so many tourists on Muang Ngoi until then.
On Nong Khiaw, we finally spoke to this Chinese tourist called Su Rong, whom we have seen earlier on in Nong Khiaw and Udomxai, who eventually became some sort of our travel companion all the way till Kunming. It was through her that we know that there's a direct bus to Kunming from Udomxai. If not for her, we would have needed to take a longer time to reach Kunming. So this is Udomxai from the top of a hill.
And there's a nice stupa on top of the hill.
The moon was in the sky;
and the sun was setting;
and that made me trigger happy.
Sunsets are free in Laos... The best things in life are indeed free.

TUN Day 9: 05/02/09 - Muang Ngoi

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So the day before, we signed up to go for this trekking trip after much consideration coz it wasn't very cheap. 21USD. But we thought it was a better idea to go with a tour rather than explore on our own coz we wanted to see the hill tribe villages. And anyway, Lao Youth Travel, which was the tour agency that we went to, was the only place that was really open for business the day before. So, here we are on this boat going downriver, where we will start trekking. There was this Dutch guy, who can't catch our names and whose name i couldn't catch either, who was on the same tour as us. 
Terraced farming. I'm pretty determined to catch this over here in China. LP calls those in Guangxi an agricultural engineering feat and i've seen pics of those that are really nice.
Hill tribe villages but i can't remember whether the village below is a Khamu or Hmong village.
Water buffaloes cooling themselves off in the mud. An interesting sight seen on our trek to the waterfall after our lunch that consists of sandwiches. Our guide and boat driver were having local food that we would rather be having.
Pigs were squealing as they were unloaded by the villagers from this boat that brought along supplies as well as tourists (going further upriver to Muang Ngoi) from Nong Khiaw. 
Me and Junyuan in the cold waters of the waterfall. The Dutch guy didn't dare to go down...
The waterfall was rather disappointing. Trekked near an hour only to reach a waterfall of this height. Anyway, i got attacked by not one but two leeches on this trek. Lucky me...
Aloune Mai Guesthouse, where we stayed for 2 nights. Could finally do some washing, the last washing was done days earlier at my sister's place in Bangkok.
A black cat that kept coming to us, even entering our room. My guess is that it was looking for food. We offered it some pringles in the end and i hope that wasn't too salty for it.
Sunset.
Sunset at a later time.
Muang Ngoi is a place where there is only electricity from 6-10pm. That's the official timing but the electricity always goes off at 9plus. I was still washing my clothes at the time when the lights went off the first day. But because there wasn't any electricity at night, it was the first time in my life that i've experience pure moonlight. There was also a bar near our guesthouse and i had a pleasant surprise when the songs they played changed from 90s hits to Jay Chou songs. Really didn't expect that...

TUN Day 8: 04/02/09 - Luang Prabang - Nong Khiaw - Muang Ngoi

. Thursday, March 26, 2009

This entry is seriously overdue but there are still more entries to be updated. =O

Luang Prabang is famous for the monk procession in the morning, when the monks will collect alms from people. But this has turned into a tourist attraction, with tourists wanting to get up close with the monks to take photos and treating this as a Luang Prabang-experience, rather than trying to gain some karma.
The start of the procession. Monks in saffron robes in line, extending as far as the eye can see, with disrespectful tourists going up close to them. =(  Anyway, we received some wrong info, so we were there like an hour earlier, when the sky was still dark and the air was cold. So much for wanting to see tourists monkeying around.
We should have allowed ourselves more time at Luang Prabang as there are still temples and some sites around Luang Prabang that we had yet to explore but we made an impromptu decision on the bus to Luang Prabang to visit Muang Ngoi, which was a place we have never heard of until i was reading LP on the winding journey to Luang Prabang. To reach Muang Ngoi, we had to take a minivan to Nong Khiaw where we would then take a boat upriver to Muang Ngoi. The minivan ride was really bad and here the driver was up on the van unloading our luggage.
I found the bridge very pretty. That's Nam Ou and Muang Ngoi is 45mins upriver by boat. 
And the river journey begins. Skeletal trees forming a line.
Layers upon layers of mountains.
Even more mountains... I have to admit that i'm a city boy and i've never seen so many mountains in my life, so i was trigger happy throughout the whole boat trip.
And we were pointing out water buffalos to each other whenever we saw them lazing by the river banks. Yar, we are so sua ku...
I liked this pic a lot. 3 trees in a row.
And this is the end of the main street of Muang Ngoi, an idyllic village where people party all day and are not really interested in making a killing out of tourists.
A dog, a man and a cat.
Ducks do follow the leader.
"Copy-and-paste" mountains.

太陽 。太陽花 。安全帽

. Wednesday, March 25, 2009

上海大舞台 from the outside, taken while waiting to go in.
I should say that these people are opportunists. They were selling helmets so that fans like us can wear it when 陳綺貞 is singing 《旅行的意義》. 
So i bought a helmet in the end, despite the slightly steep price, and felt that i belonged there. 
The inside of Shanghai Indoor Stadium. I thought the acoustics at Singapore Indoor Stadium (SIS) wasn't very good but the sound over here was worse. Luckily, i got used to it soon enough. The place was also much smaller than SIS, so i was quite close to the stage even though my ticket wasn't that good. There weren't any ushers over there but everyone could still find their seats. 
Cheer and the band wearing their helmets. This was actually one song after 《旅行的意義》. Only remembered to take a picture then. The string players were not wearing helmets though.
Basically, this is my third time catching a 陳綺貞 concert but my first time catching a concert alone. I had some worries initially about watching it alone as i thought it might be quite sian, with no company to get high with but it turned out ok coz there were no shortage of fans around.

Some interesting points about the concert:
*might contain spoilers for those who are going for the Singapore leg of the tour*
1. Some of the audience lighted up sparkles during the song 《煙火》, i was thinking what might happen to them if they did it in SIS. Would they be forced out of the hall or something? But it was damn cool to see the sparkles being lighted up.
2. Coz the concert was titled 太陽, some of the audience brought 太陽花 in. Soft toy versions though. And i overheard a conversation that mentioned that 太陽花 is actually different from 向日葵.
3. And quite a bit of the audience were wearing helmets during the concert, myself included. But Cheer diden mention about the audience wearing helmets unlike her last concert which i attended at Expo with Chongtang.
4. There was a live string ensemble! I thought that was very cool. Yar, quite a lot of her songs involve strings as background music. 
5. The introduction of the band for the concert is a staple item for all concerts but the introduction for this concert was the coolest i've seen so far. Cheer was competing with the each of the band members on "Guitar Hero" on their respective instruments, so that includes bass and keyboard too, and so they can all showcase their excellent skills. And this was done midway through the song 《吉他手》!
6. Like the Expo concert, there were lots of encore. Just when i thought that it's unlikely that she will come out again, she will reappear on the stage. You can tell that she really enjoys singing to the audience.
7. Some of the audience will shout 陳綺貞 and there will be people who will reply with 我愛你, and this happens throughout the whole concert. Very mushy but rather heartwarming. This kind of things wun happen in Singapore.

That's about all that i have to say about the concert. I really felt that it was money well spent and i'm glad i decided to go to the concert in the end. No point thinking too much sometimes. :)

Shanghai for the 3rd Time...

. Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I went to Shanghai again over the weekend because 陳綺貞's concert was over there. So this was actually my third trip over there. The first time was in '00 when i went with DHSCO and the second time was in '02 with the LEP people. And this time round, it was with the two of them below. We took a train there and at the Hangzhou train station, i had my worst meal ever. 
I went my way when we reached Shanghai because i needed to collect my ticket for the concert that night and surprise surprise, i realised the concert venue was near to IKEA and decided to make a visit there, since 陈震 and 雯雯 suggested that i go there coz they said the Singapore IKEA was very small compared to the one in Shanghai. They were referring to the Alexandra branch cause the Shanghai branch was roughly the size of the Tampines branch. Another reason was that i was curious about the hot dog. It wasn't nice though, the ones in Singapore were way better.
I met up with Junyuan and Pika at 南京街, which is the main shopping street over there. and took this pic when i exited from the train station. Over the two days, i've realised that there're a lot of steel-and-glass buildings in Shanghai. The first building from the left in the pic below looks like a pencil. More weird looking buildings to come in the pics below.
That building in the background seriously cant find into its surroundings. 
And the building looks like Bubatis from Watchmen from the front. Anyway, Watchmen's not shown here yet. 
Foggy afternoon at the Bund. Diden catch the night scenery there but the two of them did.
Still at the Bund. And there's a pineapple looking building in the background.
At night, we went to a KTV to sing through the night after i've met up with them again after the concert as planned previously as it was cheaper to sing than to sleep. They have tambourines in the KTV for use as accompaniment for the music. That's my helmet that i've got from the concert. 
Since we were singing through the night, we diden catch much sleep. After the KTV was closed at around 6, we migrated to the Mac in the opposite building to sleep. And we realised we are not the only ones doing that. When there was more sun, we went to the Technology Museum but we decided against going in in the end because the price of the admission ticket was rather steep and the exhibits seem rather juvenile.
Junyuan and me went to the Shanghai Art Museum while Pika went to 南京街 again for more shopping. That's the facade of the museum below: blend of Chinese and Western architecture. That part looked rather weird actually. 
The inside of the museum. The exhibit was art pieces of the "Shanghai Style" or 海派. The gallery was very spacious.
The road from the museum back to the metro station. There's a building that looked like the Daily Planet building from Superman in the background.
南京街 was full of people. The picture doesn't reflect it very well actually.
We also went to some indie art place and on the way there, there was this building that looked like a lighter. The indie art place wasn't very interesting, so i didn't take any pictures there.
Shanghai is going to host the next World Expo, which is going to take place next year. So all around the city, you can see the mascot 海宝 and related stuff. So, here, i'm giving 海宝 a high five at the Shanghai South Train Station.

 

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